Today’s devotional fits well with yesterday’s post about funerals and the Gospel. It’s from InterVarsity Press’ The Online Pulpit, and it looks at a short scene from Jesus’ crucifixion with symbolic significance:

When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

“Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.”
This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled which said,
“They divided my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothing.” (Jn 19:23-24 NIV)

I have always wondered why Jesus wore something so fine the Roman soldiers did not want to rip it up. I like imagining Jesus as the funky itinerant teacher dressed in something from the Salvation Army. But under it all he wore a fine tunic of the sort the high priest wore into the holy of holies. In the case of Christ though, it was stripped from him that he might take our sin, shame and nakedness on the cross. We in turn are clothed in his righteousness. Only he could stand before God naked and unashamed. He became unclothed so that we could become clothed with the finest wedding garments.

In this life we still feel a bit naked and exposed. Death is one of the things that can do this. Death reminds us just how feeble and frail we are no matter what we might be wearing. We cannot dress up death. Our own sense of nakedness moves us to find the greatest seamstress, our Father, who gives us the festal garments of salvation.

God has created us for this very purpose, for this wedding feast. And it is with confidence that we look forward to this feast, for in Christ we will not be found naked but clothed in the white garments of righteousness.

Read the complete message at The Online Pulpit.

A Christian university here in town recently put an end to a 68-year ban on staff drinking alcohol (although alcohol is still banned from campus and university-sponsored events). The staff alcohol policy follows a ban on student dancing that was dropped a few years ago. The school’s rationale was that the alcohol ban was not biblically defensible.

I remember similar debates about behavioral restrictions during my college years. I attended a Christian college with relatively few behavioral restrictions; the philosophy was to trust students and faculty to live biblically without the burden of school-mandated rules. But there are plenty of Christian schools and employers that apparently find behavioral restrictions to be helpful in promoting righteous living.

In fact, almost every employer has rules and behavioral expectations for employees. But restrictions like this alcohol ban feel different because they’re moral restrictions; and there’s an extra level of discomfort when such moral restrictions are not clearly endorsed by Scripture. They’re inspired by biblical ideals, perhaps, but they’re not actually taught in the Bible.

What do you think? Would you take a job with an employer that imposed non-biblical restrictions on your personal behavior? Is a restriction like this an instance of humans adding pointless laws to the gospel of grace? Or can you make a case that Christians should defer to well-intentioned restrictions like this out of concern for “weaker” brothers and sisters in Christ who might be led astray by seeing another Christian drinking (or smoking, or watching certain movies, etc.)?

What do you think?

It’s been a difficult autumn at my church—in the last few weeks, three members of our church family have passed away. And last week I attended the funeral of a former coworker. At the risk of sounding morbid, death and funerals have been on my mind a lot lately.

Although it might seem strange, I’ve found that Christian funerals are among the most powerful and uniquely Christian experiences I’ve ever encountered. Every funeral is different, and the experience of attending a funeral varies greatly depending on the circumstances of the death and other contexts. But if you’ve ever attended a funeral where the Gospel message was clearly proclaimed, perhaps you know what I’m talking about: there is nothing so powerful as hearing about the hope of Jesus Christ when you’re face-to-face with the tangible evidence of pain, sorrow, and death.

Hearing the Gospel message in those circumstances is not always a happy experience for me. Sometimes it provokes bittersweet joy, as in the case of somebody whose death came as a relief from long suffering. Sometimes it makes me angry—angry at this broken, sin-filled world, and angry at God for allowing death to claim somebody “before their time.” Most times we feel a rush of different emotions as our sorrow intertwines with the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

The exact reaction varies greatly. But you simply cannot avoid reacting to that Gospel message when you hear it proclaimed at a funeral. You can zone out during a Sunday morning sermon, or daydream during an altar call at church. But at a funeral, the proclamation of the Gospel stands out as a bold, almost ludicrous challenge that cannot be ignored. Joy, sorrow, pain, anger—the Gospel of Jesus demands a response. In those moments, I feel the true force of Hebrews 4:12:

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

You can hear the Gospel preached and discussed in a lot of places. In church. At retreats or Christian events. In Bible studies and small group fellowships. But if you want to witness the Gospel with all of its power to proclaim hope amidst the horror of sin and death, perhaps that message is most clear when it is spoken amidst the pain and sorrow of a funeral.